


Midnight Palaces

by Okami01



Category: Persona 5
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Medieval, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Angst, Blood, Crushes, Denial of Feelings, Fantasizing, Fights, M/M, Mutual Pining, Pining, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-23
Updated: 2020-11-23
Packaged: 2021-03-09 17:49:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,688
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27680273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Okami01/pseuds/Okami01
Summary: Akechi lives in a palace with his father and his bumbling staff. He's constantly doing his father's dirty work and is pretty bitter about it. A thief comes bursting into the palace and things change.For Akeshu Week 2020 Free Day
Relationships: Akechi Goro/Kurusu Akira
Comments: 2
Kudos: 42





	Midnight Palaces

Akechi's had a feeling he's being watched lately. In his own home of all places. Not that his father's palace is the safe happy place that most houses are like for some people. 

The first time it happens, Akechi is coming back from the study to his room. He walks into the hallway and cannot believe his eyes. Someone swings into the windows, pushing it open and flipping up. Landing on his feet. It's impressive, extremely acrobatic. 

Akechi draws his sword anyway. The darkly dressed masked figure looks left and right. His black coat swishing out behind him. A thief. Akechi thinks. A handsome one. Smirking. But an intruder nevertheless. One with pale grey eyes and dexterous hands.

Of course, the guards are incompetent, he'll have to deal with it himself.   
It doesn't matter. He thinks. Just another death. He's killed enough already that it's just a part of him. As is his sword. The piece of steel glints in the moonlight.

Akechi darts forward and whether it be bravery or stupidity, the thief doesn't jump back. Doesn't run away.The predictable, safe, and cowardly choice. Akechi had been planning in his mind to give chase out the window. 

Now the thief is running forward instead. He slides to the left. Akechi swings, he sees the glint of steel and twist of a wrist a second too late. Pain jolts through his hand. His grip loosens, concentration wanes. It's been a while since someone has stabbed him. Since they've been able to.   
It's been a while since he swung his fists. Reaching out and drawing blood. 

Akechi is pissed. The thief lunges again, not relenting. He kicks. Akechi blocks with his blade. He steps back and then forward again, slashing across the thief's chest. 

He winces, blood spills on the ground. All he gets is a muffled whine. Akechi wants more 

The thief jumps further away, still not retreating. 

He's mad. Though Akechi could have shouted for help. The guards could stand the exercise. Bumbling and incompetent as they are. His father would be angry. Akechi doesn't mind his anger, he looks forward to it. But he also wants his trust. He'll need it if his plan is to succeed. 

Besides this in a way, it's sort of fun. So much inconvenience, so much fear. He hasn't had a real fight in a while. 

The bloodshed and heart-pounding is enough to make up for the pain in his whist.

The thief charges again. Akechi blocks his knife strike with his sword. 

" You barge into my home and attack me." He whisper growls. 

The thief had the nerve to smirk again. " No one told you to fight back."

What the hell? Akechi nearly screams. 

Instead, he thrusts his sword hard onto the thief's chest. He meets air and it surprises him. 

Then, there's a noise. A servant who wandered into the hall drops a plate. 

Akechi doesn't turn around. But before he can lunge forward again to attack, the thief flips backward out the window. 

Akechi runs now. He looks out into the fog, within the meticulously manicured grounds.   
The thief is running quickly, a black and red blur in the night. 

Akechi turns. His anger dissipated at the loss of the fight. It comes back stronger when he looks at the servant, in tears and stunned. Some good any of these people are. 

" Say anything and you die." He sheathes his sword. The servant nods profusely then bows and runs away. Akechi thinks about killing him. Decides against it.

Mostly because they're already down quite a few servants. 

He whips off the blood. A task that does nothing to slow his heart. 

When he wraps his hand, steeling the wound and laying down in bed, things don't change either. 

___

Akechi isn't one to rely on anyone for anything. He's long since gotten used to dealing with things with his own hands. The servant doesn't say anything. He doubts that they could get their thoughts together to say anything. 

His father wouldn't care anyway. 

" I cut my wrist bumping into a servant carrying a vase. The vase is broken and his hand is cut. Lying comes as easy as breathing, never hard anymore. 

He barely here's his father saying that he didn't bring him here to be clumsy and unaware.

Akechi's blood boils. And not in the way that it did when he was fighting the thief. 

He turns his fork over in his hands. Staves his bloodlust. Now is not the time.

Unfortunately, during the Town Hall Speech isn't the time either. Akechi sits there and smiles. He listens, not because he particularly cares about their town or the people within it. But you never know what information might be important in the future. 

Those listening to Shido drone on about their town's future doesn't practically seem important right now. Costs of wool, helping society prosper under his reign. Hollow lies. 

And it's even less important now when he sees the thief from before in the crowd. The feeling of being watched again.

Akechi swears it is. Maybe it's boredom or a chance for revenge or curiosity. He knows he'll pay for it later. 

But he doesn't care.

Akechi gets up and sneaks away calmly. He starts to walk blending into the crowd.

That perchance for dark clothing. Unruly hair and grey eyes. 

Maybe it's someone else, the still slightly functioning rational part of his brain says.   
He won't be satisfied until he finds out for sure. 

Somehow, Akechi ends up running. The thief gives chase. Akechi can just make out the heel of the thief's boots down an alleyway corner. 

Behind an ox card, on the other side of the carriage. The sun beams down overhead. Random civilians walk by unaware of what is happening. 

Finally, after running for what feels like hours. When even Akechi can't keep the tired pant out of his voice. He corners the thief in an alleyway. Stepping forward slightly. " Do not take another step, he mutters.

The thief takes his hand off of the brick of the building. He smirks and waves. No longer wearing the red gloves. His hands are surprisingly bare. Pale. Akechi sees no knife, but he knows to be wary. 

Hasn't known another way for quite some time.

" It took you long enough."

There is something about him that makes Akechi want to scream. That stupid smirk and unmasked and surprisingly handsome face. 

" You know the city well for someone who sits and hosts meetings all day, prince."

Akechi spends a lot of time in this city killing people, but that's we neither here nor there.

He suppresses a frown. Uses that barely contained bloodlust smile of his instead.

" You have a lot of confidence for a common thief." 

The thief laughs. It's a low cocky sound that makes Akechi want to… well pin him up against the wall and stab him. 

" Do I seem like a common criminal? If we wanted to steal something… I don't think it would be that hard to do?"

" We? So there's more of you rats?"

Akechi remembers reading any reports about thieves in the night breaking into houses. Smaller places though. And not here. Not people the same age as he. They were only a rumor or a legend depending on who you talked to. Cloaked in mystery but probably not amounting to much.

Now he's curious and he has a reason to keep talking to the thief.

Not that he needs a reason to do what he wants.

"Are you sure you're on the right side of justice?" The thief's glasses glint in the torchlight. 

" What are you talking about? Who are you to break into my home and preach to me about justice."

" I'm Joker."

Akechi's nose scrunches in irritation.   
" Like the cards?"

" Do you play?"

" No, I can't say that I do."  
And why is he being so casual? 

Akechi takes a step forward. Joker doesn't move back.

" Maybe we could form an Alliance?"

" Why would I want to do that? I stabbed you."

Akira touches his hand over where the scar must be. Akechi resists the urge to touch his wrist. 

" You seem like someone who wants the same thing as I do."

Akechi scoffs. 

Akechi doesn't know what he's talking about. which is annoying in its own way. All he wants is revenge. For the years he spent in the slums. For all the pain he and his mother suffered. Nearly dying in some rat-infested brothel, only to leave and learn how to survive. How to kill. It's something he's grown skilled at and the only reason his bastard king of a father decided to contact him. 

That may maybe because he wanted to keep an eye on Akechi. Kill him when he became a liability.

Akechi would just have to ruin his life first. 

He stares at Joker, who looks back with his curious grey eyes and even expression. Akechi wants to see the expression he wore when they fought before. He takes another step forward, drawing his sword. 

" Fight me again."

Joker's eyes glint and that smirk comes back. He flicks his hand, Akechi tracks the movement, waiting for an attack. Instead, it's a metal hook, that shoots and anchors to the building above. 

Akechi runs forward, wishing to catch him. He trails through the air quickly and annoyingly and gracefully.   
Then he's already gone. 

Whipping up to the roof and breaking out into a run. Akechi clutches the stone and he sighs. 

___

His father might have been mad at him. He still hasn't had the time to do anything about it. Too busy soothing the needs of his citizens, on the surface only then screwing them over in the shadows. 

It's just another day in the kingdom. Akechi gets his work done and he goes to bed at some point. With a headache and sore muscles. 

When he sleeps, it's either darkness or nightmares. He's used to both. The air from the window is little comfort nor is the sword by his bed. 

But he can't get that stupid thieves words out of his head 

And just when he thinks he's about to get some sleep, he hears a loud thunk. 

He has a half-formed speech in his head. Who does Joker think he is? Of course, Akechi would never want to team up with him. He's better than some stupid band of thieves who haven't managed to steal anything from his house. They can consider themselves dead, because Akechi has already decided that he cannot allow them to just roam around his streets and do as they please. 

He jumps out of bed and growls.

Part of him is impressed that Joker had the guile to come back. Though it takes little skill to run blindly into danger. 

"What are you doing here? You wanna die."

Joker shakes his head. 

" Well if you think you're going to steal something from me then you'd better leave."

He shakes his head again. " We don't steal that sort of stuff."

" Then what do you steal?"

" You ask a lot of questions."

" You don't answer enough of them."

Joker laughs. He sits on the window frame like he's supposed to be here.

" You don't like him, do you? Your father… Isn't there some way we could come to a-" 

" No, there isn't. Now shut up and let me kill you."

Akechi lunges forward, Joker moves to the side. It goes like it did before, the same clanging of swords. Metal to metal, blood spilled and soft grunts exchanged. Just as electrifying. Just as secret. Neither of them wants to wake the servants for different reasons. 

Joker is strong and he's skilled with a blade. There's something ruthless in his fighting style but just as much, sometimes teasing playful almost. In the way that he keeps running, twisting just out of reach, smiling and waiting for Akechi to come after him. It's ridiculous but it gets Akechi out of his head. It gets his blood pumping. 

Joker tries to trip him. Akechi isn't above or unused to underhanded tactics. He twists with Joker, pushing into him, pinning him to the ground. 

Joker bites, he bites Akechi and then elbows him in the ribs. Akechi reaches for his sword, while Joker knees him and scratches with those soft red gloves. 

The normal peasant outfit had looked surprisingly ok on him. Up close, in the light he could actually see in, Joker looked even better in this. In the pitch-black tunic and high boots. 

They both jump back from each other, panting, frazzled, cut and with wounds that strangely don't hurt as much as the others did.

" Why did you come back here?"

" I can come back again, " Joker says, winking. His eyes flicker towards the door. As if waiting for an interruption.

" You should focus on the things that you need to steal."

Joker smiles at that again. " My priorities are straight."  
He stares at Akechi. At his lips of all things. Licks the blood off of his lips. Akechi's blood. Akechi knows what it tastes like. He's gotten cut in his mouth and face enough times. 

Still, he wonders what it might be like, to taste his own blood on Jokers lips.

He stares back at the thief. Resists the urge to lick his lips, to bite or close the distance between the two of them. Who knows what else Joker could use those dexterous hands for. The fabric of his clothes had cut easily enough. Who knows what it might feel like in his hands.

Ridiculous fantasizes. That Joker doesn't seem to be privy too thankfully. He simply stands there with his knife and irritating cocky attitude.

He leaps out the window again. Akechi wishes he would stop doing that just because it's rude to leave without warning. 

Though what they've done to each other is beyond rude. 

He should have killed him. And yet, he didn't. Akechi wonders if he'll be back again. 

___

There were stories in Akechi's far and recent past. Violent ones where he lived at his father's castle and fended off intruders. His father's guards were incompetent and his father seemed to think that it builds character. 

At some point, Akechi is going to make sure he sees exactly what character it's built. It won't be pretty. Violent and torturous. 

Those were stories he didn't want to tell. Because they were steeped in blood and irritation. And right now, it was almost midnight, which meant that the castle was about to be broken into yet again. Normally, Akechi would be upset. Now he's a little excited. He can push thoughts of revenge and murder to the background. He can think about the thief running through the grounds in the dead of night. 

Akechi tries not to be obvious. Sitting with his hands clasped on his bed. He stands, then sits back down. The uncertainty of the situation is almost irritating. 

The light clink of metal against the wood makes his heart jump, as much as he tries to steady his nerves. He's left the window open on purpose. There's a thrill to making him work for it. But he decides against it today. Maybe it's the wave of nostalgia making him kinder today. Unlike the first time. 

The breeze makes the curtain sway even more. Akechi isn't one to do anything without knowing what will happen first. Still, he can't help but wonder if he should join the Phantom Thieves. What new opportunities might reveal themselves if he spends more time with Joker. 

He isn't one to let his decisions get clouded by emotion. Other than the emotion of rage from time to time. 

There isn't any time for fun right now. Especially the kind that comes with stupid things like crushes and unnecessary fights. 

Akechi will consider his options and, only because he wants to keep a close eye on the Phantom Thieves from a business standpoint, will he join their group. 

Joker appears in the window, leans up against the wall, smirking. Akechi smiles back. 

__

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Akeshu Week! Thanks for reading! Take this weird medieval royalty au that I started writing just before National Novel Writing month starting kicking my butt. One day, I'd like to write more of it.  
> @Tavitay on twitter!


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